...With Envy
by tempestuous
Summary: Jealousy can drive people to unspeakable things. (Peter POV ficlet)


**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters. Don't sue me, I'm trying to pay for college. 

**Rating:** PG 

**Spoilers:** For PoA and GoF, in an abstract sort of way. 

**Feedback** would be much appreciated. 

**Author's Note:** I really dislike Peter, so when this began to take shape in my mind at 1 a.m. while I was desperately trying to get to sleep, I was suprised and vaguely annoyed. This is a perspective I'd never seen before, which doesn't mean it hasn't already been done, I'm usually too busy reading slash. I've seen "Snape loves Lily, thus hates Marauders," but never "Peter loves Lily, thus turns on Marauders." Mostly it seems to be "Peter likes some Hufflepuff girl because they're equally clumsy and thus conveniently gets out of the way." Which I have no problem with, I don't like Peter. However, mysterious forces compelled me to not get sleep, but write this instead, so here it is. I apologize for the repetition and overdone disjointed monologue style used here...it was late at night. 

**...With Envy**

They were like my brothers. James, light on his feet and funny and smart without even trying. Sirius, blustery and mischievous and charming. Remus, quiet, grounding, and so tragically brave. And I was the littlest brother, the tagalong, the one Mum said to take special care of, whose runny nose needed to be wiped. 

Occasional disagreements are all part of being siblings. They were like family. 

But she..._she_ was like a vision. 

I loved her before James, I'm almost sure of that, she should have been mine. Right from the beginning. When I saw her at the sorting feast, shy next to a pigtailed brunette, watching the floating candles and bewitched ceiling with those big green eyes, green like meadows. Hair like beautiful fallen leaves and a slow smile warmer than the sunlight. 

I watched her, and waited, and dreamed. Angels with russet manes and eyes like forest glades leaned in to kiss me, but I always woke up alone, unblessed, to the same red velvet curtains, a brash red cheapened by the more subtle tones of her hair. 

It was our third year, Valentine's Day. Anxious twittering and batting of eyes and the smells of chocolate and perfume. I conjured a card, one with twinkly coloured lights. (Remus helped me. I told him it was for a Hufflepuff girl from Herbology.) I bought the best chocolate in Hogsmeade. I asked her for help with Charms (that was her best class) as everyone else was going up to bed. 

She wasn't a cruel girl. She didn't laugh at me, she didn't throw the chocolate back in my face. She patted my shoulder, and said sympathetically "Oh Peter, I'm sorry, James has already asked me to be his Valentine. Now what are you having trouble with in Charms?" 

She wasn't a cruel girl. No one else ever found out, the tale wasn't giggled from friend to friend over February 15th's breakfast. But sometimes, in my dreams, I can hear her telling James, the one person she would have told. 

"Can you imagine, James..._Peter?!_...I'd rather die..." 

Shut up. You _did_ die, are you happy now? Are you? 

This is only sometimes. 

Mostly I don't dream. 

Mostly I don't sleep. 

I went to the wedding, of course. 

I watched those eyes, green like clover (like the luck I didn't have), blink on the verge of happy tears at a beaming James. I watched Sirius chortle out the Best Man's toast, I watched Remus smile shyly over his tentatively raised glass of champagne, I watched the concerned faces of the older adults as they talked over the wedding dinner. A happy occasion in hard times. 

I watched it all, nursing the brand new Dark Mark under the sleeve of my dress shirt. The sting of it was drowned totally by the hollow ache in my chest as that hair like fire, those eyes like climbing ivy, ivy that had a strangle hold on my heart, walked out the door on James' arm. 

I watched throughout the next year or so. They turned the secret over to me. Poor, silly, helpless Peter, no one will ever think to come and find _him_. 

No one had to come and find me. I'd already found them. A new family. A stronger family. A family where I was... 

...the littlest brother, the tagalong, the one Mum said to take special care of, whose runny nose needed to be wiped. 

But this would change that. This would make me valued. Respected. Loved. 

I didn't think. I didn't stop to realize that in the end, all I was doing was letting someone take her from me a second time. 

That those eyes, green like algae, like bile, like the promise of spring--those eyes were shut forever. Snuffed out by a curse with a colour to rival their own. 

I had to look at that son of hers every day for almost three years. Her son, the one who never should have lived while she, my angel, my vision, my love, was killed. He showed me mercy that night, that encounter with the broken shards of my first family, a weakness his father would have loved. 

My master almost vanquished him on the third try. Almost felled his own downfall. But he failed. And part of me (a very small stubborn part, a part of that heart I thought I'd burned long ago to unresurrectable ashes) can't help but be glad. 

Because his eyes are hers. 

Green. The only colour I ever knew of love. 


End file.
